TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:RE: Distributed authoring using Word and Domino? From:"Erika Yanovich" <ERIKA_y -at- rad -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 8 Jul 2003 10:21:20 +0300
Geoff,
What you describe is a very, hmmmmmm, challenging task. Before you even think of the technical issues, you should probably focus on the management ones. Building and maintaining a good working relationship with all these writers is a prerequisite. It very much depends on your organizational culture, which you don't mention anything about. Assuming you work in a multinational environment where people are used to cooperate at this level, I'd start with a face-to-face meeting with a rep from each site. There you can agree on the technical issues, such as SW versions, templates, procedures, styleguides, etc. You have a good chance to reach agreement if these don't come from 'above', but are discussed in a forum, making everyone a partner in the decision making process.
If the above scenario is impossible in your environment, don't even read further.
As for the technical issues, I'd start with building a website accessible to all writers. This should serve a double purpose: a) repository of contact info and shared materials (templates, etc.); b) repository of files i.e. extension of the writers' hard disks for single sourcing purposes. This should be carefully planned and organized. You may need to look into some SW tools (Sharepoint comes to mind, but there are lots of others).
You will need to appoint at least one person to maintain the site with all its contents (see a above) and solve current problems sent by writers.
I'd also have a weekly conference call and a yearly (at least) face-to-face meeting.
This is a very complex task, but if you succeed to do it, think about the great paragraph you could have on it in your CV....
I'm sure that as time goes by, we'll see an increased number of such global teams and efforts. It's great to be part of something big when it starts.
ANNOUNCING ROBOHELP STUDIO
Create professional Help systems that feature interactive tutorials and
demos with all new RoboHelp Studio. More at http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l2
Mercer University's online MS Program in Technical Communication Management:
Preparing leaders of tomorrow's technical communication organizations today.
See www.mercer.edu/mstco or write George Hayhoe at hayhoe_g -at- mercer -dot- edu -dot-
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
